News Items.
by John Ellis. 17 July2019.
1. Like it or not, genetic modification is going to be an important tool to feed the planet’s growing population. If we want to feed 10 billion people by 2050, in a world beset by rising temperatures and scarcer water supplies, we will need to dramatically change the way we produce food. Increased public investment in technologies like genetic engineering is a vital piece of that, according toa report published Wednesday by the World Resources Institute.
2. Elon Musk and top-level scientists from his neuroscience startup Neuralink Corp., who are developing a next-generation brain-computer interface, unveiled what they billed asa significant advance toward a therapeutic devicelast night. The device would connect human brains and machines with more precision than other available devices, according to the company, which has been developing the technology for roughly two years. Neuralink is putting together a submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to start testing the technology in humans. The goal is to use the platform to treat neurological conditions like movement disorders, spinal-cord injury and blindness.
3. Concerns about the power of the major technology companies echoed across the nation’s capital on Tuesday, with politicians in both parties demanding more regulatory scrutiny of the tech giants’ reach and plans for expansion. In three hearings, which were focused on Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans, alleged Google censorship, as well as on an antitrust examination of Facebook, Google, its owner Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com and Apple, the companies took punches on a range of political and policy issues.
4. President Trump said the U.S. government would "look into" national-security concerns raised by billionaire investor and Facebook Inc. board member Peter Thiel about Google’s ties to China. Hours later at a Senate hearing, Google confirmed for the first time that it had killed its controversial plans for a censored search engine in China dubbed “Dragonfly.”
5. The EU has launched a formal investigation into how Amazon uses data from other merchants selling goods on its websites, saying it wants to “take a very close look” at the company’s business practices to see if they breach antitrust rules. The step marks the latest probe into a US tech giant by the outgoing EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager and comes weeks after US president Donald Trump accused her of hating the US.
6. Amazon.com has agreed to change the terms of service on its platforms for third-party sellers around the world, following an investigation in Germany into the e-commerce giant’s practices in its fast-growing marketplace segment. The settlement marks the conclusion of an eight-month probe by the German Federal Cartel Office, which along with counterparts in the European Union has stepped up oversight and regulation of large U.S. tech giants in recent years.
7. The World Trade Organization has said some US tariffs on Chinese goods do not comply with its rules, opening the door for Beijing to levy retaliatory sanctions. The ruling from the WTO appellate body late on Tuesday on the case, which predates the current trade war between the two countries, was blasted by the US trade representative office, which claimed the report was undermining its own rules.
8. Singapore's exports dropped 17.3% from a year ago in June, the fourth consecutive month of double-digit declines, intensifying worries about an export slump amid the prolonged U.S.-China trade tensions. According to government data released Wednesday, the city-state's benchmark non-oil exports fell more sharply in June than the 16.3% decline in May, slowing at their fastest pace since February 2018, when overseas shipments dropped by 33.2%. The city state’s economy is considered a bellwether for the region as it is a transshipment hub, meaning that the goods that pass through its ports are generally bound for other final destinations.
9. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell highlighted the growing importance of global developments in monetary policy—a reflection of how slowing growth abroad has likely set the stage for the U.S. central bank to cut interest rates despite strong labor markets and consumer spending at home. Speaking at a conference in Paris Tuesday, Mr. Powell focused on how the upheaval of the 2008 financial crisis reshaped the central-banking landscape, leaving a very different set of policy challenges than the ones faced in prior decades.
10. Kyle Bass, the outspoken hedge fund manager who rose to prominence through prescient bets against the US housing market, Greece and Iceland, is now wagering that US interest rates will collapse to near zero next year as the country enters a recession and the Federal Reserve is pushed into crisis mode.
11. Clover Technologies is in the mundane business of recycling everything from inkjet cartridges to mobile phones. But in the past week it abruptly -- and alarmingly -- caught the attention of Wall Street. Almost overnight, a $693 million loan Clover took to the market five years ago lost about a third of its value. The startling nosedive stung even sophisticated investors, people who deal in the arcane business of trading corporate loans. Read the whole thing. Brian Chappatta argues that the Clover's leveraged loan isn't a liquidity scare.
12. A growing number of money managers are embracing a new strategy designed to benefit from volatility in junk-rated corporate loans, a sign of building worries about riskier borrowers and the market that supports them. Since November of last year, three different money managers have issued $1.6 billion of so-called enhanced collateralized loan obligations that are set up to hold a much larger amount of loans with extremely low credit ratings than typical CLOs. At least two more managers are expected to follow suit in the coming months.
13. U.S. consumers are taking advantage of low interest rates to borrow and spend, boosting banks that cater to Main Street and leaving behind those that don’t. Booming consumer businesses drove quarterly profits higher at JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, while trading and deal fees shrank. The results show American consumers are more upbeat about the economy than businesses and institutional investors. Low unemployment, rising wages and the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady prompted consumers to increase their credit-card spending and take out new mortgages.
14. There is a widening gap between a limited set of successful cities — which draw both highly educated workers seeking well-paid jobs and high-tech companies that want to employ them — and pretty much everywhere else. This new pattern of economic development amounts to a fundamental break from the decades after World War II, when poorer and generally smaller cities were catching up with richer, bigger places. In recent years, this convergence stopped. Many midsize cities and small towns that found manufacturing-based prosperity in the 20th century have lost their footing in the tech-heavy economy of the 21st.
15. America’s largest drug companies saturated the country with 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pain pills from 2006 through 2012 as the nation’s deadliest drug epidemic spun out of control, according to previously undisclosed company data released as part of the largest civil action in U.S. history.
16. The United States and Russia will meet today to discuss the possibility of a three-way nuclear arms treaty, including China for the first time. The Trump administration has wavered at seeking an extension to New Start, the last remaining arms control treaty between Washington and Moscow, insisting that China must be included in any deal for a new generation. Arms control experts have warned that there could be a nuclear arms race unless the two sides are able to negotiate an extension to Start before it expires in 2021.
17. At least seven Chinese and Vietnamese ships have been engaged in a stand-off in a resource-rich part of the South China Sea since early July, in an impasse that maritime analysts say could ignite into a dangerous confrontation. The Haiyang Dizhi 8, a Chinese geological survey vessel, arrived in an area less than 200 nautical miles off Vietnam’s coast on July 3, according to analysts who track maritime activity in the area rattled by China’s territorial disputes with several neighbors.
18. Iran’s top leader yesterday struck a belligerent tone in an escalating confrontation with the West, promising further Iranian violations of the fraying nuclear agreement and retaliation for what he called the piracy of an Iranian tanker by “the vicious British.” The defiance expressed by the top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, contrasted with what seemed like a less confrontational stance taken at the White House. President Trump told reporters that “we’re not looking for regime change” in Iran and that Iranian leaders had communicated a desire for negotiations with the United States despite their hostile remarks in public.
19. Turkey is sending a fourth ship to Cyprus in defiance of sanctions imposed by the EU, adding to the tensions over gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. Fatih Donmez, the Turkish energy minister, announced yesterday that the seismic exploration ship Reis — Turkish for “chief”, the nickname given to President Erdogan by his supporters — will head for Cypriot waters after it has finished its duties in the Sea of Marmara.
20. A former Israeli leader who is seeking to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing scrutiny over his financial and personal ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the American financier charged with sex trafficking and abusing underage girls. Ehud Barak, 77, a former prime minister and defense minister, received some $2.3 million in payments from a foundation associated with Mr. Epstein from 2004 to 2006, and Mr. Epstein invested a reported $1 million in a limited partnership established by Mr. Barak in 2015.
21. Abigail Disney, an heiress of the Walt Disney empire, has become a champion for better working conditions in her family’s parks after she went undercover in one of them and found a grim reality beneath the facade of the “Happiest Place on Earth." Ms. Disney, 59, decided to look into working conditions at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, Calif., last year, after a beleaguered worker reached out to her via Facebook. What she found there left her disenchanted — and, she says, clashed with the values of her grandfather, Roy O. Disney, who co-founded the company with his brother, Walt Disney.
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Quick Links: Scotland is now generating so much wind energy, it could power two Scotlands. Radiation in parts of the Marshall Islands is far higher than Chernobyl, study says. Secret locations of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe accidentally included in report from NATO parliament. Intel’s new AI chips can crunch data 1,000 times faster than normal ones. Five major issues raised by Facebook’s Libra hearing before Congress. EU to probe Amazon over merchant data. Betting man Kyle Bass wagers Fed policy will turn Japanese. Lower US interest rates squeeze bank lending margins. Widespread, dangerous heat wave to expand across much of the United States. A battle over water in Texas. Bird attacks are turning violent this summer. Alzheimer’s affects women more than men. Notre-Dame came far closer to collapsing than people knew. El Chapo will be sentenced to life in prison today. Will the US ever find his billions? Once hoping for skiing into August, Mammoth Mountain slopes to close July 28.
Political Links: North Korea's economy may be in the worst shape since the 1990s. Four books on the roots of Vladimir Putin's power over Russia. News Items recommends Angela Stent's Putin's World. Ursula von der Leyen was narrowly approved as European Commission president. The Times of London profiles Ms. von der Leyen. Britain is bracing for an economic shock as no-deal Brexit draws closer. Pound hovers around $1.24 on growing concern over chaotic Brexit. Boris Johnson plans early election to hit Jeremy Corbyn. Mr. Corbin is "failing the test of leadership," say more than 60 labour peers. Debt-limit talks hit more snags. Tom Friedman: “Trump’s going to get re-elected, isn’t he?” Mark Sanford says he’s considering primary challenge against President Trump. Trump campaign launches effort to court female voters. Reuters/IPSOS poll: Republican support for Trump rises after racially charged tweets. House condemns Trump's attack on four Congresswomen as racist. Rep. Al Green (D-TX) files articles of impeachment against Trump, despite pushback from Democratic leaders. Sanders toughens his critique of Biden, signaling more clashes ahead. Former US Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens has died. Linda Greenhouse 's appraisal of Justice Stevens is here.
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